Our friend Mike Konczal gives us credit for going back beyond the housing boom or the invention of the credit default swap to look at the larger historical phenomenon of deregulation and the confluence of “the financial and the elite classes.”

David Markel writes what may be my favorite review yet at The Aleph Blog. This is my favorite part:

“Simon Johnson and James Kwak write a popular blog, The Baseline Scenario. They have written a very credible book on the crisis, which I have. It covers all of the bases in a methodical way, and there was little with which I could find fault, and it does so without conspiracy-mongering, or name-calling, while still finding fault with a great many parties.”

You see, David Merkel is a very knowledgeable blogger, and he is not afraid to call a spade a spade. And so “there was little with which I could find fault” counts as a real compliment to me.